Thursday, December 6, 2018

Earlier
today, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, Anthony Grado, a member
of the Luchese organized crime family, and Lawrence Tranese, an
associate of the Colombo organized crime family, were sentenced by
United States District Judge Carol B. Amon to 12years’ and 40 months’ imprisonmentrespectivelyfor
conspiring to distribute oxycodone that they obtained through
fraudulent prescriptions. The Court also ordered Grado to pay $70,000 in
forfeiture and Tranese $12,000 in forfeiture.
Richard P. Donoghue, United States Attorney for the Eastern District
of New York, William F. Sweeney, Jr., Assistant Director-in-Charge,
Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York Field Office (FBI), and James
P. O’Neill, Commissioner, New York City Police Department (NYPD),
announced the sentence.
“Today’s sentence punishes the defendants for ruthlessly endangering
our community through their organized crime-backed distribution of
highly-addictive opioid drugs,” stated United States Attorney Donoghue.
“This Office, working together with our law enforcement partners, will
continue our relentless efforts against those responsible for the opioid
epidemic.” Mr. Donoghue thanked the Richmond County District Attorney’s
Office for its assistance during this investigation.
“Opioid and prescription drug abuse affects communities and families
in New York and across the country. Grado and Tranese’s conspiracy to
distribute oxycodone contributed to this nationwide crisis, and even
worse, they threatened a doctor with violence in order to coerce him
into providing fraudulent prescriptions,” stated FBI Assistant
Director-in-Charge Sweeney. “Today’s sentence should stand as a warning
to organized crime families, their associates, and anyone else who
would commit similar acts in order to further the scourge of opioid
addiction for their own benefit: you will be found out and brought to
justice.”
“Dismantling criminal enterprises, in all their forms, will always
be a priority for the NYPD and our law-enforcement partners at the
Eastern District and the FBI,” stated NYPD Commissioner O’Neill.
“Collectively, we have a very long reach and we will not tire in our
mission of fighting crime and keeping people safe – which includes
removing from our streets anyone who adds to our nation’s opioid crisis
by dealing illegal narcotics.”
Grado and Tranese, together with their coconspirators, gave a
Brooklyn-based doctor the names of people for whom the doctor should
write prescriptions, and the doctor complied, usually without conducting
any physical examinations. The defendants then filled the
prescriptions and sold the pills. Alternatively, the defendants and
their coconspirators used violence and threats of violence to force the
doctor to write the prescriptions, or seized the doctor’s prescription
pad and Grado completed the prescription. In one recorded conversation,
Grado told the doctor that he would make the doctor write “a thousand
scripts a day and [expletive] feed you to the [expletive] lions” if the
doctor wrote prescriptions without Grado’s approval. In the same
conversation, Grado told the doctor that if newly ordered prescription
pads “go in anybody’s hands” besides Grado’s, “I’ll put a bullet right
in your head.” During the course of the conspiracy, one of Grado’s
associates stabbed the doctor in a dispute over the doctor’s
prescription pads.
The government’s case is being handled by the Office’s Organized
Crime and Gangs Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Mathew S.
Miller and Matthew J. Jacobs are in charge of the prosecution.The Defendants:
ANTHONY GRADO
Age: 54
Monroe Township, New Jersey
LAWRENCE TRANESE (also known as “Fat Larry”)
Age: 55
Brooklyn, New York
E.D.N.Y. Docket No. 17-559 (CBA)